


Forever and Never

by Kiintsugi



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Powers, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-06
Updated: 2020-04-06
Packaged: 2021-03-01 22:35:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,040
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23514778
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kiintsugi/pseuds/Kiintsugi
Summary: “I need you, Kara,” she says, and the words are like magic.Kara drops the box in her hands and lunges for Lena. She captures Lena’s face between her fingers and presses her lips against her before either of them could think better of it. And Lena doesn’t -- she just doesn’t know what else to do except to kiss her back, everything inside her boiling over to the point of no longer being able to express herself with words.And Kara, apparently finding herself in the same position as Lena lets her.
Relationships: Kara Danvers/Lena Luthor
Comments: 2
Kudos: 161





	Forever and Never

Lena blinks awake; her head pounding, chest aching. She wipes at the blur in her eyes, feeling the wet swipe of tears that she was hoping not to find and, with a staggered breath, pushes away from the warmth of her bed. 

She’s alone in her home; her tiny studio apartment that she insisted upon paying for herself – with no help from her mother no matter how much she hated seeing Lena live like this. Her tiny, scarcely furnished apartment that she’s so incredibly proud of, that’s crammed with books and littered with forgotten coffee mugs. Her tiny, well-loved apartment. It feels too big, too empty, tonight. 

She grabs the comforter from the bed (it hadn’t been tucked into the corners in months and her mother would kill her if she found out) and wraps it around herself like a cocoon of warmth. She makes her way across the floor, from one corner of the room to the other, where a small bar of counter top juts out from wall and divides the kitchen from the rest of the apartment. She brews a pot of coffee, the first and only thing she can properly make in her own kitchen, and a scratchy moan crawls out of her throat once the aroma hits her. 

It’s hardly past two in the morning, but she knows she won’t get getting any more sleep tonight. 

Her favorite part about her entire apartment is the fire escape along the back wall that she can reach through the window. She has to prop it open with an old book – it’s a pain and a half to get open from the outside – but it has a wonderful, real, view of the city. It wasn’t like a vast field of fireflies the way the view was in her father’s office or her brother’s penthouse suite. It was over an active street corner; with traffic and pedestrians, a twenty-four-hour corner store, and a man who lived adjacent to her that sometimes went off his meds and declared himself god. 

She climbs out, dragging her comforter with her and props the window open with a well-loved copy of a Margret Atwood novel. She nestles into a plastic chair left by the last tenant and breathes in the coffee clasp between her fingers. The sound of tires against the street soothe her bones, the occasional chime from the corner store doors echoing off the brick walls like an adroit accent to the otherwise casual cadence. 

Lena sighs into her cup, feeling the fingers of stress loosen from around her chest. She closes her eyes, takes in the sharpness of her surroundings: the smell of the city, the sound of cars, the liveliness of the streets below, the sound of feet against metal grating above her? 

Lena opens her eyes and looks up. There’s two sets of feet on the fire escape above her, quiet voices laughing at one another as one set of feet crash against the edge of the fire escape. They turn around, face the other person and Lena looks away. She’s never met the person who lives above her but she knows they’re relatively quiet. That’s about all she knows about all her neighbors, the entire building too. It’s quiet. 

For some reason, she feels like she’s intruding on something she isn’t meant to be a part of. A part of her starts itching to escape back into her apartment; to pull the book form the window, crawl back into bed, and pretend to sleep until the sun comes up. But another part of her, the piece of her that made her escape to the fire escape in the first place, defiantly roots into her and Lena merely scratches the itch to leave with a long, warming sip from her cup. 

The people disappear back into the apartment above her after a few moments of stifled laughs clumsy fumbles and Lena relaxes into the hard, plastic chair. She drains her cup, letting the ambiance of the city drown her mind and almost falls into a place without time before the aroma of coffee seeping out from her propped window hits her and she remembers the entire pot of coffee waiting for her inside. 

Coffee has been her saving grace. The only thing in her life that she has any control over. Its familiar, sturdy, consistent. She pours herself another cup and runs her fingers over the faded image printed onto the side of her mug that somehow still manages to read “Tired and ready to be hired,” after all these years. She is tired, she thinks, reading the faded symbols. Lately, she’s always tired. 

Growing up she always had everything she could ever want or need. Her every desire was met on a whim before she was given the chance to even _think_ about complaining. Her childhood closet was probably the size of her entire apartment now, and thinking back, the young her would have been appalled and disgusted at the state her life is in now. But that young girl never would have thought that Lex was capable of doing the things he’s done. Because that young girl looked at Lex as if he were a god among men. Her brother, her hero. 

_When I grow up I want to be like my brother!_

Lena wrinkles her nose at the memory. How she used to dream of being Lex’s equal. How she used to strive for the perfection that earned her his praise. It’s funny, subtly so, how this is how she’s wound up. How he’s wound up. A broke rebel. A broken man. 

She’s never considered herself a rebel before. Breaking rules and defying expectations has always been out of the question. For the Luthor’s, the bar is set high, and ambition and drive are the only things that matter. The only traits nurtured to grow and develop as she and her brother aged. With each accomplishment she made, another hurdle would come to replace it, and refusing to face a challenge was always met with harsh repercussions. In short, she couldn’t simply rebel against the Luthor agenda. No one could. And yet, here she is, as broken as her brother, picking up the pieces of herself that she had to break in order to get away. 

But it isn’t just her family that’s left her broken. It isn’t her feelings of loss over her brother’s actions or her mother’s ineptitude for proper maternal instincts or even the death of her father that’s left her shattered beyond repair. It's this tiny, too big apartment – meant for two and occupied by one. It's the abandonment of her strength, the loss of her rock, the stripping of the foundation of which she stood upon that truly destroyed her. 

When she left Kara... 

When she made Kara leave, she thought at the time that she would be stronger than this. She thought that... after giving everything up, after turning her back on her family and the privilege they had, that she would be fine. She thought, she actually thought, that she might even prosper without the weight of another person weighing on her heart. But, things never go Lena’s way. That’s the only constant in her life she can accurately predict– her ability to fail to see what’s right in front of her. 

Without Kara, Lena feels more broken than ever. She feels... she feels more like a Luthor than ever. And that reality scares her. But she can’t very well go crying to her ex about that. Not after the way things ended between them. She also can’t go crying to her friends – they're all Kara’s friends too. And most of all she certainly cannot go crying to her mother. Really, she can’t cry about it at all. And the only thing Lena has wanted more than Kara since their breakup, is the emotional reset that comes with sobbing herself to nothingness. 

But, crying doesn’t come naturally to a Luthor; anger does. 

The more Lena fails to work through her feelings like a normal person, the more she feels herself falling in line with the Luthor way. Anger is the most powerful weapon in the Luthor arsenal; it’s the fuel to their fire. And each day Lena wakes up so, so very angry. Angry at Kara for what she did, angry at her family as she always is, angry at the world for testing her at every turn, and angry at herself most of all. She’s angry at herself because she’s weak. She’s angry at herself because she allowed herself to be broken, and she’s angry at herself for not seeing it sooner – for seeing it at all. 

And now, most of all, she’s angry at herself for wanting Kara back. 

She looks at the carboard box in the corner of the room filled with Kara’s things. Kara was supposed to come and pick up the last of her things a week ago, but Lena has insisted on keeping herself so busy that their scheduled last meet has been postponed and rescheduled more times than she would care to admit. But Lena can’t possibly postpone the inevitable any longer. Today Kara will come, her things will leave, and Lena will likely never see her again. 

Other than shared friends, Kara and Lena really have nothing in common. Kara is studying Physical Science and works as a personal trainer; Lena is studying Computer Engineering and works at a computer repair shop. Kara is outgoing, social, giving beyond measure; Lena is introverted, cold, and self-serving. It was unlikely that either of them would ever cross paths again; Lena has only to decide if she’s happy with this knowledge or not. 

She knows she should be happy with it. She should be happy to finally move on, to finally rid herself of the weight that’s held her heart hostage. But she would be a fool to ignore the pangs in her chest she feels every time she looks at that box in the corner of the room, every time she lays down in bed alone. 

She would be a fool to let Kara go. 

This, however, is only a realization she comes to when Kara is standing in the doorway to their – her – apartment, and Lena’s breath catches in her throat at the sight of her. 

She’s as beautiful as ever, fresh off her morning workout with muscles pumped and a sheen of sweat glistening over her perfect, sun bathed skin. She’s wearing a faded black crop top, a red sports bra that’s peeking out from the loose fabric around her shoulders, and a pair of equally faded black joggers. Her hair is pulled back into a pony tail, wild and messy from what Lena can only assume based on Kara’s old schedule to be Endurance training day at her gym. 

“Punctual,” Lena notes, trying to fake casual indifference despite the yearning feeling that’s beginning to swell in the pit of her stomach and burn like fire throughout her body. 

“You said eight, so,” Kara begins, trailing off when Lena arches a brow at her, 

“Punctual is good, Kara,” she says. 

“You just,” Kara begins, tilting her head to one side. “You look like you’ve been waiting for a while. That’s all.” 

Lens steps aside and gestures for Kara to enter into the apartment. 

Kara hasn’t seen the place since she left, but it hasn’t changed much. Still, her former lover takes her time taking in the apartment. She looks around form wall to wall, smells the air, lingers on the window that leads to the fire escape – it was her favorite spot too, after all. 

“You look good, Lena,” she says, and Lena knows it’s a lie. She looks like a hot plate of garbage. Still, Kara’s words strike her as genuine, and she’s grateful for the compliment. 

“Thank you,” Lena says, “So do you.” 

It’s painfully awkward between them, walking the line between years of intimacy and weeks of broken bonds. Trying to find what is and isn’t comfortable or appropriate has them both wound into knots and Lena can feel the anxiety on Kara’s shoulders radiating throughout their once shared apartment. 

Their breakup had been messy, unexpected on Lena’s part, and not the kind of argument that someone simply ‘forgets’. It was loud and angry and went on for hours and by the end of it all Kara was crying and Lena, closer to tears then she’s been since childhood, had a throbbing in her temples so intense she thought her head might split open. Even thinking about it now brought back a mess of unpleasant feelings and emotions, a ghost of that headache threatening to return. 

Luthor’s don’t forgive. They take their pain and their anger and their rage and they turn it into a weapon. They move forward out of spite and seek vengeance in their success. And Lena, being a Luthor, knows that this path is comfortable and safe. But Lena, having become so much more than a just a Luthor because of Kara, also knows that there is so much more to life than spite and revenge. That this, even this, can be resolved and forgiven. 

But forgiveness does not come easy. She still feels betrayed and broken by Kara. She still feels raw and salted and left on the side of the road. And maybe, Lena thinks, that so long as she refuses to forgive Kara for her mistakes, she will never heal. She will always feel this gash in her chest that exposes her soul to the world. She will always feel like salt is fresh in the wound. 

And she doesn’t like that one bit. 

She wants to feel whole again, and there is no whole without Kara. And so, for her own sake, she can’t rely on her Luthor blood to see her through this pain. 

Kara spots the box of her things and shuffles across the apartment. She scoops the box into her arms, shifting awkwardly as she tries to get her bearings on the weight of it all. “This is everything?” Kara asks. 

It is, Lena thinks, but she says otherwise. “No, it’s not.” 

Kara looks into the box and shifts around to jostle the contents. “It seems like everything. What else is there?” 

Lena licks her lips, her eyes trailing down Kara’s features; from her crystal blue eyes, to her slightly plumper lower lip that’s tangled between her teeth as she ponders, down her neck and collarbone. Her eyes come back up, Lena sucks in a breath, and she says with her best tone of voice, “My forgiveness.” 

Kara’s clearly lost her breath at this, and she blinks with confusion, about to speak but never actually saying anything and Lena thinks, no she knows, that she’s lifted a crushing bolder from Kara’s chest that’s been there far longer than their breakup, and now, Kara can finally breathe again. 

“I need you, Kara,” she says, and the words are like magic. 

Kara drops the box in her hands and lunges for Lena. She captures Lena’s face between her fingers and presses her lips against her before either of them could think better of it. And Lena doesn’t -- she just doesn’t know what else to do except to kiss her back, everything inside her boiling over to the point of no longer being able to express herself with words. 

And Kara, apparently finding herself in the same position as Lena, lets her. 

They’re grasping for one another, the kiss they share burning and bruising because neither of them are coordinated enough to know what they’re doing or even how they should be feeling right now. Lena tangles her fingers in Kara’s hair before Kara pushes her up against a wall, sending a gasp through Lena that she can’t contain. 

It’s messy and there are tears now and Lena isn’t even sure that they aren’t hers because everything is blurry and she just feels so much right now. God she’s missed Kara. She’s missed her the way the stars miss the moon, the way the sky misses the sun and she thinks, she’s nothing without Kara, nothing worth being at least. Without Kara she’s an angry, vicious Luthor. With Kara she’s a woman with love and kindness and support flowing through her veins. And yes, Kara lied, but she’s only human and she did it with Lena’s best interests at heart. That isn’t something she can say about anyone else. 

Open mouthed kisses trail down Lena’s neck, and she’s wriggling impatiently under Kara’s touch, her perfect, knowing touch. 

Kara’s hand slides down into Lena’s pants and Lena moans into Kara’s ear at the feeling of Kara’s skin against her again. Her leg find purchase around Kara’s hip and Kara’s hand is leaving hot fingerprints against her thigh as her other hand works her way down and between her folds. 

Despite the desperation between them, Kara takes her time with her. Perhaps because she's missing the feeling of Lena as much as Lena misses the feeling of Kara, and seeks to commit something once taken for granted to memory. She pulls back from her kisses and finds Lena’s eyes, watching the pleasure crack across Lena’s face as she feels the corkscrew of Kara’s fingers prompt a sharp and almost primal gasp. 

And Lena holds her gaze, feeling that is what Kara wants from her as Kara slides her fingers in and out of her, making a fire swell within her that erupts from her abdomen and makes her cheeks pinken and her nipples tighten at Kara’s touch. And when she finally comes, it's with a violent shudder, the orgasm sweeping over her entire body as she allows her eyes to flutter shut and her head to fall. 

Kara continues to hold her while Lena gets her bearings, trying to catch her breath and figure out what the hell had just happened and... why she let Kara go in the first place when she is capable of so much more than simply making Lena feel like less of a Luthor. 

“God,” Lena breathes, “I’ve missed you.” 

And Kara smiles, that breathtaking, earth shattering smile of hers and says, “I’ve missed you too.” 


End file.
